Beer Sheva: Brutalist And Neo-Brutalist Architecture

By Hadas Shadar, Photography: Shai Epstein

Brutalism is an architectural ethics that sought to express the structure’s truth: its functional, materialistic and local truth and the movement within it. This contrasts with “style”, which often amounts to a collection of rules about “right” and “wrong”, “pretty” and “ugly”.

Brutalism, according to its truth-seeking definition, cannot be a style, as structures must constantly be reexamined: do they reveal the movement within them? Do they express their location? Do they expose their materials?

Even the name “Brutalism” stems from the search for truth. In this case, the truth of the material: Béton brut in French means “bare concrete”.

The Beer Sheva Brutalism seeks to interpret the specific place: the desert and its many physical and cultural layers. Beer Sheva’s Brutalist structures are similar to other Brutalist buildings in other parts of the country (most designed by the same architects) yet they still hold the uniqueness of the desert.

Understanding their historical and architectural significance is essential to understanding Beer Sheva’s uniqueness. Beer Sheva, presented in future plans as Israel’s next metropolis, is unlike other metropolises – Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – having its own individuality including through its Brutalist landscape.

Opens: Sunday, July 13 2014
The exhibition will be shown until Sunday, August 31 2014